


Ring Composition

by thegirlwiththemouseyhair



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-24
Updated: 2014-03-24
Packaged: 2018-01-16 20:10:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1360207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirlwiththemouseyhair/pseuds/thegirlwiththemouseyhair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A conversation between Thomas and his new partner. This is set within the world of a longer idea I have and hope to start posting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ring Composition

It was one of Thomas’s half days. He was, of course, spending it with Arthur, his handsome new lover from the village.

Arthur was a jeweller, and lived in the little flat above his shop, which meant they could have a drink or a hand of cards in the privacy of his home and go to bed together afterwards in relative safety. Sometimes Arthur even closed the shop early on days when Thomas got into town.

“You don’t mind doing those?” Thomas asked that afternoon, as Arthur hurried to put away the wedding ring he was working on.

“Why?” Arthur asked, setting the ring down on a metal tray. “They’re easy enough to do and business is decent…”

Thomas shook his head. Sometimes he couldn’t believe he’d taken up with someone who could be so innocent.

“I meant making things for - couples who can be happy and live together properly,” he said.

Arthur looked up. A strange look came into his face. _Of course you’ve felt it_ , Thomas thought. _That’s right. I know you’re not stupid._ He admired Arthur’s life, in some ways, and often wondered if he could have had a similar one, had he taken over his own father’s shop. But that was different. Everyone needed clocks and watches. They were sort of neutral like that. He didn’t know if he could stand to make rings and other tokens for couples in love, when he was the way he was. He didn’t know how Arthur stood it - working for or on other people’s happiness, when he would always be an outsider to it.

“Well, I have been jealous, sometimes,” Arthur replied. Thomas sighed as he reached for a cigarette. He was _such_ a decent chap - too decent for Thomas, maybe; it was hard to imagine things working between them.

“It can be frustrating,” Arthur added. Then he tried to smile, tried to make a joke. “But after all, business is business.”

Thomas shrugged. Arthur looked at him, searchingly, then took Thomas’s free hand. “Things might change though.”

“Change?” Thomas asked. He looked away from Arthur to frown at his lighter.

“I mean, improve for people like us -”

Thomas gave a bitter laugh.

“No, really. There’s going to be all new ways of thinking, eventually. There already are, on some things - psychoanalysis, votes for women. The world is changing.”

“Fat lot of good it’s done me,” Thomas scoffed. The best he’d gotten was being told that it wasn’t his fault he was twisted, sick in the head, which was what had made him so _foul_. It wasn’t much of an improvement.

“You’re too - naive,” he said.

Arthur bristled.

“I’m not. I just try to be an optimist. Being the opposite doesn’t do much good, does it?”

Thomas had always disagreed.

“See? As I said, too young and naive for me…”

He was, however, smiling when he said it. Arthur was so different from him. Thomas knew from experience that it was easy to hate when the world had always hated you. Maybe it took a sort of strength that he’d never had to be hopeful and kind, despite everything.

“Well, you’re a terribly cynical, _old_ man,” Arthur teased. “Can’t imagine what I see in you.”

Thomas raised his eyebrows. “Well, I can go if you like…”

Arthur tugged at Thomas’s hand, pulling him closer.

“Of course not. You know I’m only joking.” He flicked his eyes over to the shop window before putting Thomas’s hand to his lips and kissing the fingers above the glove. “I can’t imagine what your blond fellow up at the Abbey _didn’t_ see in you.”

Thomas shrugged. “That were a while ago. Come on, let’s go upstairs and make the most of my half day.”

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to ALittleWhosthis for the quick read through. As I say, this OC and idea come from a larger plot bunny that I have started working on. 
> 
> The line about "it's so easy to hate/ it takes strength to be [gentle] and kind" is almost word for word from the Smiths' I Know It's Over, which was stuck in my head while writing this. Arthur's line about being an optimist "prefigures" Sir Winston Churchill's quote that "I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else."


End file.
